Current mood:	analytical
Current music:	The 5.6.7.8's - Three Cool Chicks
Entry tags:	cthulhu, demented ravings, economics, lovecraft

Horror and Freedom
HP Lovecraft is the subject of continued fascination among scholars, readers and cultists in every part of the world where horror matters and sanity is a minor irritant. In many respects, he remains an enigma, the focus of constant speculation. The Cthulhu Mythos will always find willing contributors.

The common view of HP Lovecraft's philosophy is that he was nihilistic, within one of the many disputed meanings of the term or, at the very least, that he viewed the universe as essentially hostile to life and reason. A careful interpretation of the subtext of his seminal story The Call of Cthulhu¹ reveals that the tale of dread horror was a libertarian manifesto- a satire on the monstrousness of the state. As I will demonstrate, Lovecraft's belief in individual rights and freedom was intimately linked to his loathing for miscegenation and his racist worldview.

Lovecraft's readers know that he was skilful. Always apt in his choice of words, his depictions of his fictional world were precise and spare in their use of adjectives. Nameless horrors had a place in the [original] Cthulhu Mythos, but only when every possible adjectival option had been explored. Lovecraft's technical proficiency is exactly what permitted him to conceal his libertarian beliefs in plain sight. Of all the readers of The Call of Cthulhu, not one up to this moment has spotted the truth. It is my modest duty to reveal the results of my penetrating inquiry to an expectant world.

Lovecraft concealed his political beliefs in the simplest way possible: he made them part of the story outline. In summary, the horrifying events in The CoC involve an Anglo-Saxon, evidently among the upper class of New England- the quintessential WASP, in fact- who delves into a mystery surrounding the death of his scholarly uncle. We learn that the deceased Professor Angell was investigating certain curious visitations inflicted upon a young artistic New Englander described by Lovecraft as being of excellent family². These are the opening bars of the symphony of nightmares that is unleashed upon the consciousness of the protagonist, the unfortunate Francis Wayland Thurston. We are then told of the ghastly events involving half-caste, mulatto cultists in New Orleans. The Law, in the person of the worthy John Raymond Legrasse, touches briefly upon the Cthulhu mystery. The blood-freezing finale involves a Nordic sailor, Johansen, who is the sole witness of the attempted return of Cthulhu and the city of Rl'yeh to the world of men.

This story is quite familiar, both in outline and detail, to anyone who follows the Cthulhu Mythos. But it is that knowledge which blinds us to the core of The CoC. The Anglo-Saxon from New England, epitome of a rich and successful America, delves into a terrible menace which a Nordic sailor barely manages to escape. The nature of this menace provides us with the key insight:

Consider Cthulhu's form: amorphous, slimy, with myriad tentacles. There are very few descriptions of an intrusive state that approach Lovecraft's, both in accuracy and pithiness. Compared to Cthulhu, a single enterprise, the schooner Emma, is powerless. We are a hierarchical species; not, perhaps, Dumont's Homo hierarchichus, but we tend to develop bureaucracies wherever we congregate. Even if a catastrophic event disrupts society, hierarchy re-asserts itself after a brief hiatus. This is powerfully enunciated by Lovecraft in the following passage:

"For an instant the ship was befouled by an acrid and blinding greencloud, and then there was only a venomous seething astern; where - God in heaven! - the scattered plasticity of that nameless sky-spawn was nebulously recombining in its hateful original form, whilst its distance widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting steam."³

The contrast between the monstrous state and industry, in the form of steam power, is sparingly but skilfully drawn. Like the State, the Cthulhu-being is infinitely malleable, relentless and malevolent.Like the State, Cthulhu erects Rl'yeh's "weedy Cyclopean masonry"- an image surely inspired by Stalin's Wedding Cakes- to Itself. The Nordic- held by many racialists to be the epitome of western manhood, fearless and handsome- breaks away from the loathsome assault of the State, and it is left to the educated Anglo-Saxon- those great believers in laissez faire- to warn the world of the horrors of the State. It is no coincidence that so many key scenes take place in ships and docks. In the early 20th century, these were the frontiers of the free market. The madness that results from contemplating the secrets of the Cthulhu Cult is analogous to the "The Place That Sends You Mad" in The Twelve Tasks of Asterix. The Legrasse Affair is a clear indication that Lovecraft is not an anarchic libertarian. He firmly believes that the law is necessary to safeguard our human and property rights. Even more subtly, the triumph of Legrasse over the Cthulhu cultists indicates that, in the author's view, the law serves the people and acts to curb the power of the eldritch collectivity that is the Cthulhu-State.

The Call of Cthulhu, then, is a sophisticated political allegory⁴ about the perils of State intervention in trade[symbolized by the Emma], research [symbolized by Professor Angell], art [symbolized by Wilcox] and commerce. It falls into that category of satire to which Bastiat's famous Petition to Block the Sun also belongs. Less perceptive readers may claim that it is a tale of shrieking insanity; the politically wise know better. It is time to remove the unjust categorization of Lovecraft as a horror writer and place him where he belongs: in the pantheon of libertarians. Hayek and Friedman will now make the acquaintance of the misunderstood libertarian from Providence.


1. Hereafter The CoC.
2. Emphasis mine.
3. Emphasis mine.
4. For those unfamiliar with Natural History, an allegory is a close cousin of the better known alligator.